Just something whacky to get you thinking. At least it got me pulling apart my hair, and now, I'm half bald.

Monday, February 01, 2010

Vanilla Milk using natural vanilla extract

I started making vanilla extract in July 2009 using adaptations of the innumerable recipes available online. It's now been 7 months since I started so I decided to try out the extract for making vanilla milk (which btw I absolutely love and up to this point made using pulverized vanilla beans).

Attempt-1: Measure about 1 cup (approx. 200 ml) of milk in a glass, pour it in a vessel and heat. Add 1/2 tsp vanilla extract to the glass (which has traces of cool milk). The last bit caused the trace amounts of milk in the glass to curdle. However, pouring the heated milk and sugar in the glass did not curdle the rest of it. The whole drink smelt of alcohol though.

Attempt-2: This time, I decided to not leave trace amounts of milk before adding the extract to the glass. Again however, I did get some smell of alcohol.

Attempt-3: This time, I decided to do some research online and figure out if anyone else is facing the problem of an alcoholic smell in their extract. As it turns out, it is expected to be this way for a real extract!! (feature, not a bug ;) ). I also happened to read that adding sugar reduces the alcoholic smell, and that when this extract is used in cooking, most of the alcohol will in fact evaporate and hence not leave behind that alcoholic smell. So, this time, I added some sugar to the glass before adding the vanilla extract, and after pouring in the hot milk, I stirred for about 4-5 minutes before consuming the drink. Viola!! No smell now!!